Web Governance

🪄 Introduction

NCSSM's web presence is the primary public communications medium used to promote and enhance the institution’s image by providing relevant and up-to-date information about our programs, courses, partnerships, resources for teachers and students, and accomplishments. The website at www.ncssm.edu should:

• Establish an online identity that captures the brand identity of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics

• Reinforce the institution’s goals outlined in NCSSM's strategic plan 

• Create a rewarding user experience that will promote the mission of the institution of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics to:

  • educate and nurture academically talented students to become state, national, and global leaders,

  • increase access to high-quality public education in North Carolina, and

  • cultivate engaged citizens who will work for the betterment of the world, through challenging programs, with an emphasis on STEM, driven by the pursuit of excellence and innovation.

🏗 Governance Structure

• Webmaster - The primary owner of the website is responsible for the implementation, maintenance, and quality control of the website.

• Web Communications – This group, consisting of resources from Communications and Information Technology Services (Webmaster), is responsible for the design and content of the website and may recommend purchases, policies, and procedures to report to the Leadership Team to get buy-in from divisions and vice-chancellors.

• Web Advisory Council – Appointed by the CIO and/or Vice-Chancellor for External Relations, this group is charged with providing strategic direction, creating and policing adherence to standards to ensure the accuracy, consistency, and integrity of the website.

• Web Editors – made up of Content Management System (CMS) editors that adhere to established policies and procedures to produce content to an appropriate standard.

Responsibilities of the Webmaster

• Perform CMS maintenance, development, and upgrades.

• Ensure compliance with all legal and regulatory standards, including accessibility and security.

• Facilitate and resolve non-compliance issues.

• Create website analytics reports and deliver them to contributors.

• Provide training to approved web editors.

Responsibilities of Web Communications

• Set strategic website goals in line with NCSSM’s strategic plan, and the Key Performance Indicators to measure those goals.

• Ensure site quality and content integrity.

• Establish appropriate policies, processes, and procedures to govern current and future website standards.

• Set resourcing and budget authorization.

• Monitoring overall site performance.

• Work with web editors to ensure that their efforts remain strategic and on message.

Responsibilities of Web Advisory Council

• Stay informed of website goals and give feedback when needed.

• Approve and bring awareness to the appropriate policies, processes, and procedures to govern current and future website standards.

Responsibilities of Web Editors

• Access the CMS regularly and have a level of familiarity and competency in the system.

• Use best practices for updated content, naming conventions, asset placement, and accessible HTML coding.

• Review website analytics reports that provide insight into how their content is or isn’t being used.

Current Web Editors

Training and Compliance Requirements for Web Editors

Staff, faculty, or students assigned to creating and/or maintaining Web pages will be required to complete the following requirements before they are given access to the CMS:

• Complete CMS and Web guidelines training by the Webmaster.

• Complete network security training required by Information Technology Services.

• Use multi-factor authentication to access any editing interface on the website.

• Understand and abide by the policies and procedures in this document.

• Agree not to publish web pages without page content, with "Coming Soon", "Under Construction" or similar messages. Note: This may be avoided by leaving incomplete web pages unpublished.

• Agree not to use copyrighted material unless written notification has been given from the copyright holder.

Website policies and procedures

The purpose of policies and procedures around this information is to provide consistent, accurate, current, and secure information to users of NCSSM.edu websites. This will provide several benefits such as:

• Accurate, current, and consistent information across institutional websites.

• A unified data organization scheme with data that can be accessed in a standard way, across multiple sites. This aids communication and interoperability.

• Information that is secured and complies with organizational policies.

• Reducing risks to the organization, its constituents, and stakeholders.

Website Ownership

To use copyrighted material, web editors must give written notice to the copyright holder and receive written permission from the copyright holder to use it.

Any student-generated content must not be published through an iframe pointing to a student-controlled resource, and, must be reviewed and approved by the Webmaster prior to incorporation.

Standards and Related Policies

Websites of official NCSSM departments must reside in the ncssm.edu domain unless approval is granted from the Web Communications Team. For questions, contact the Webmaster at webmaster@ncssm.edu.

All institutional Web pages must comply with local, state, and federal laws and NCSSM’s existing policies and procedures.

Acceptable Use Policy & Data Management Policies

NCSSM has established specific policies for accessing the NCSSM network and data management. Appropriate use of computing and networking resources and ensuring the integrity of data and privacy is everybody’s responsibility. Technological and information resources and the access provided by the institution to campus resources are to be governed by these documents.

The Network Acceptable Use Policy applies to technology administered by individual departments, to student-owned hardware connected to the campus network, to the resources administered by departments such as the Library or Information Technology Services, and to actions originating from computer systems maintained by members of the campus community off-campus which connect remotely to the institution's network services.

Both the Network Acceptable Use and the Data Management policies apply to all systems owned, managed, or administered by the institution and any use of those systems. Many specific areas and/or systems may have service-specific policies that apply in addition to these policies. Please refer to the entire documents found at Acceptable Use Policy and Data Management.

🔧 Website Technical Overview

Architecture

Applications Used

Scripts used in the current website version.

Known errors

📚 Website History

Record of previous website versions